As 1975 began, I spied a book on my father’s shelves in his Leeds University office, 1975: The Year of Doom.By now the Oil Crisis had severely constrained resources in Britain; I had realised just how reliant we were on supplies from overseas. When school broke for the Easter holidays that year, I had mixed feelings …
Author Archives: sedgword
What Goes Around…
Finding myself displaced by organised politics in the mid-1970’s, I happened upon two sources of sustenance. The first was new political theatre, at York Arts Centre. There, my father and I were riveted by electrifying Agitprop productions of workers’ theatre, including 7:84* and women’s theatre, such as Monstrous Regiment** The other comfort was music, especially …
Groundhog Day (Der Tag des Murmeltiers)
As 1969 began, I wondered what the year would bring. Having checked out our neighbourhood, it was clear that our house straddled the class divide. On the opposite side of our street, mothers drove their smartly uniformed children to private primary schools. Our backyard gave on to a terrace of small houses, in which working …
1968:One Girl’s View
In this, my first step into the blogosphere, I sketch a Sixties’ childhood, to the end of 1968. This photograph shows my late parents at a CND march in Liverpool in 1959. Edie, my mother, was pregnant with me at the time. Shortly after this march, Liverpool University sacked my father – after he had …
sedgword 